Free Body Double by Alane Hudson Page A

Andrea licked her lips. It now felt warm in the restaurant, and she took a few swallows of water.
    He cocked his head and studied her. “You find me irresistible,” he marveled as if discovering a long-lost truth.
    She cleared her throat. “I find you passably attractive.”
    Blake found a smile under his melancholy. “We’ll see about that. How much did you say she’s paying you for this?”
    “A million dollars,” Andrea said. Thinking about actually getting that kind of money was like thinking about buying the winning lottery ticket. It was a dream, practically unreachable. All she could do was go ahead with the plan and see what happened.
    His gaze dropped to her lips and paused there before returning to her eyes. “That’s a lot of trouble for a million dollars. How about a million from Sarah and, say, five million from me?”
    “What?”
    “I’m the beneficiary of the agreement between you and Sarah. Don’t you think I should ante in too?”
    “You don’t—” She realized her volume was rising, and she leaned forward to whisper, “You don’t think five million dollars is going to buy you a whore, do you?”
    “No! God, no.” He blushed from his neck to his forehead. “I would never presume... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply I was buying your presence in my bed. I just think a million isn’t enough. I’m offering you what I think is fair, given what you have to go through.”
    “Oh. Well, a million dollars might be pocket change to you, but it’s a lot of money to me.”
    “It’s a lot of money to me too. Sarah’s going to be getting a hell of a lot more than that without even showing up, and I’d rather not postpone the wedding. You’re digging us both out of a tight situation, and you deserve fair compensation for it.” He flashed a brilliant smile at her. “So what do you say? Will you marry me, Andrea?”
    With her blood rushing through her body in fear, excitement, and relief, Andrea took his offered hand, so large and warm. She could barely breathe. Her last chance to get out of this had passed. There was no backing out now. “Yes, I will.”
    He brought her hand to his lips and, while gazing deeply into her eyes, placed a soft kiss on its back.
    A warm thrill ran up her spine. She was starting to have very inappropriate thoughts about another woman’s fiancé.
     
 

     
 
    Gazing into Andrea’s beautiful blue eyes across the dining table, Blake tried to wrap his head around the entire situation. He was marrying Sarah but not Sarah. A sense of disappointment dragged every beat of his heart down to his gut, though his curiosity about Andrea made the proposition feel less insulting. What really got under his skin was Sarah’s reason for not being at the wedding herself. He was about to marry a lesbian, for crying out loud.
    He’d never kidded himself about the nature of their relationship. Like everyone else, he’d always planned to marry for love. He might not have been marrying Sarah for love, but he respected her, he enjoyed her Southern charm, her humor, and he was intensely attracted to her. He’d convinced himself that, in time, they’d grow to love each other. Now, he knew that was unlikely. She might love him like a brother, but he wanted more than to be tolerated in her bed. Like any other man, Blake wanted to be wanted.
    Judging from the look in Andrea’s eyes, from the way her breath caught in her throat when he touched her hand, she had that missing piece—the attraction to him that Sarah plainly didn’t have. There was no denying the feeling was mutual. Not only was she as pretty as Sarah, she had an innocent sensuality about her that stirred him down to the deepest reaches of his manhood. Her mannerisms and posture were less confident than Sarah’s, but the way she held her head tilted to one side with her face directed downward while looking up at him, the way she held one shoulder slightly higher than the other turned his insides to mush. Those